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Schools superintendent gets new 2-year contract

The Ruidoso school board has signed a new two-year contract with Supt. George Bickert, insuring that he will continue to direct the education of the district’s nearly 2,000 public school students through June of 2018.

The Ruidoso school board has signed a new two-year contract with Supt. George Bickert, insuring that he will continue to direct the education of the district’s nearly 2,000 public school students through June of 2018.

The board finalized the agreement following an executive session at the end of its monthly meeting Tuesday evening. Bickert’s current base salary of $118,965 will remain unchanged.

Bickert said he was delighted.

“I enjoy the experiences and opportunities of working with this community for the betterment of our children,” he said

Bickert came to Ruidoso in 2013 after four years as principal of Crownpoint High School in the Gallup-McKinley County School District. Before that he was principal of Tohatchi Elementary School in the same district.

He was hired to replace Bea Harris, who was suspended at the end of a feud with a bitterly divided school board over policies or conduct that were publicly disparaged but never actually described by her enemies on the board.

The one thing that all sides agreed on was that Ruidoso schools were doing poorly in statewide rankings and were urgently in need of leadership that would produce improvement but weren’t getting it while the dispute simmered.

After five months on paid leave, it appeared Harris had done nothing to justify her outright dismissal under the terms of her contract, so the board paid her severance to be rid of her.

To many of the district’s voters the affair was an appalling spectacle that did little credit to any of the parties involved or to the community that had put them in their jobs.

But the public turbulence of that period has been absent since Bickert’s arrival, and he has appeared to enjoy a good working relationship with the current board. Cory said there was only “one dissenting vote on the motion to approve a two-year contract.”

Bickert has continued to wrestle with district schools’ performance in standardized tests and state rankings, with modest success. In December, three of the district’s five schools moved up a grade, but the other two went down. Major improvement at all five remains one of his top goals for the next two years.

His list also includes continuing to maintain strong “open and transparent” relations with the board and the community and strengthening “the district's partnerships and positive interactions with all stakeholders: village and county government, local businesses, civic groups, and of course our parents.”

Bickert’s wife, Janice, is also an educator, serving as regional manager for a federally funded program that provides free books, tutoring and reading instructional support to schools and students.

That program “is continuing for the next few years and it greatly helps support our students and teachers,” Bickert said. “So, we very much want to be here.”